Surgery professor Philip Chiu Wai-yan has been appointed new Dean of Medicine by the University Council, starting in February. He will succeed Professor Francis Chan who has been in the role for more than a decade.

Graduating from the Faculty of Medicine at CUHK in 1994, Professor Chiu joined his alma mater in 2005 and is currently the associate dean (external affairs) of the Faculty. He is professor and chief of division of upper gastrointestinal and metabolic surgery in the Department of Surgery, and also director of the InnoHK-supported Multi-Scale Medical Robotics Center. He oversees the Endoscopy Centre of the University’s Institute of Digestive Disease and the CUHK Chow Yuk Ho Technology Centre for Innovative Medicine.

The search committee unanimously recommended Professor Chiu as the most suitable candidate for the position after an open global search starting January 2023.

The dean-designate said being named the ninth Dean of Medicine of CUHK is a great honour, and thanked the search committee and the Faculty for their support and trust. Expressing gratitude to Professor Francis Chan for his visionary leadership in the past decade, Professor Chiu said: “I will continue to build on this achievement and its robust developments in medical education, research and clinical service, and further strengthen its position as the leading medical school in the region.”

Professor Chiu is an internationally renowned scholar on upper gastrointestinal surgery. His research interests include oesophageal cancer management, minimally invasive and robotic esophagectomy, novel endoscopic technologies for diagnosis of early gastrointestinal cancers, endoscopic surgery as well as robotics for endoluminal surgery. 

He is the first to perform endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) for treatment of early gastrointestinal cancers in Hong Kong in 2004, followed by the first per-oral endoscopic myotomy—a minimally invasive procedure that treats swallowing disorders caused by muscle problems through inserting an endoscope through the mouth and cutting the muscles—in Hong Kong in 2010. He conducted the world’s first robotic gastric ESD in 2011, and the world’s first robotic colorectal ESD in 2020.

The surgeon-professor has received numerous awards for his breakthroughs and achievements, including the State Scientific Technology and Progress Award. He has taken two Gold Medals with Congratulations from Jury at the International Exhibitions of Inventions of Geneva and the Spirit of Hong Kong Award on innovation.